Evanescent
by Hannah the Scribe
Summary: (Before the Music Dies Legacy) They all had something that broke them into little pieces. The Gamemakers, and their memories that they'd rather forget.
1. Learn How to Live

**Author's Note: Basically a prequel follow-up for **_**To Describe a Gamemaker/**_**"iridescent"**_**. **_**Will be similarly eight chapters, one per character. Please review with your thoughts!**

**Trigger Warnings: Violence, Death, Mentions of Divorce, Nightmares**

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><p><em><strong>Before the Music Dies Legacy<strong>_

_Evanescent_

(They all had something that broke them into little pieces. The Gamemakers, and their memories that they'd rather forget.)

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><p><strong>Chapter One: Learn How to Live<strong>

_Mistina Ann "Misty" Freeweather, Year 362, District Four_

The motor-mouthed girl with the long golden curls, those striking sea-green eyes, framed by a tan face, laughing. _Angel. Angelfish Korrall. _The witty boy with the same eyes and darker tan, shorter, straighter hair. _Neptune._ _Neptune James Korrall. _The two cousins' faces and names were forever imprinted in Misty's memory.

She met them when she was sixteen, young once, at the beach of District Four, on one of her parents' business trips. She wandered carefully through the sand, waves lapping at the ground around her, curious blue eyes trained on the shell-dusted shore.

And, lost in her thoughts, mentally composing a poem about the froth of those waves, she ran straight into Neptune—although she didn't know his name then—and was startled into taking a few steps back, looking up at him. "Sorry," she said. "Are you all right?" He looked like it.

The boy offered a wry smile. "Well, it's not as if _you _hurt much."

Misty wasn't sure what to say to that. After a moment, she responded: "I'll take that as a yes." She gave a wry smile of her own.

"NEPTUNE JAMES KORRALL!" a girl screamed from across the beach. "Are you _flirting _with her?!" Suddenly she appeared right next to them. "Hi!" she said to Misty, and shook her hand enthusiastically. "I'm Angel. Or Angelfish. But mostly just Angel. Neptune here is my cousin. Nice to meet you."

"Good to meet you, too—" Misty got in, before Angel continued:

"—You're not from around here, are you? You don't really look like it. What's your name, anyway?"

"Misty," she supplied. "Yes; I am from the Capitol. My parents are here on a business trip for the family company."

"With a name like that, you _could _be from around here," said Neptune.

"How long are you here for?" Angel cut in again.

"Almost a week more."

"Great, then, you have time to have dinner with us. Come on." Angel started to drag her along by the hand, and Misty decided to go along with it, even as Neptune rolled his eyes at his cousin, going with them.

The Korrall family all had an extra dose of personality.

**. . . . .**

The days started to pass too quickly in a happy blur. Lazy swims, shell-hunting, sandcastles, sports, sunset-watching, ice cream cones, fishing, walks, talking, Angel's braided rope friendship bracelets.

_"Have you ever just thrown your hands up and let yourself live before?" _Neptune asked her once, the sea brushing up to their ankles in the sunset.

_ "No. I haven't. But it's nice."_

Angel and Neptune were unlike anyone she'd ever met in her life. They didn't mind that she was from the Capitol. They didn't mind any of her quirks. And they were so simple in their own way—children, happy, loving. Misty had found two new best friends, no matter what the horribly short time span was.

The last day was saddening, but she promised to write letters, and see them whenever she came back.

And she went back to the old reality of the city.

**. . . . .**

They all wrote letters constantly for more than a year. She went back to District Four twice and saw them on every day.

Now she was seventeen, and so were they. Misty watched the Reapings at home—One, Two, Three—and could find at least Angel's face in the crowd of District Four.

_"Neptune Korrall!"_

"No!" Misty cried suddenly at the television, alert, now an inch from the screen. She tried to control her breathing, searching Neptune's face with odd franticness, his features enlarged on the screen, for some sign that it wasn't really him.

But it was.

And _no one volunteered. _Neptune and Angel weren't Careers. But the crowd wouldn't have known that.

_"And now for the girls!"_

Misty couldn't even listen, feeling shaky and sick to her stomach.

_"I VOLUNTEER—!"_

She would know that voice anywhere.

_Oh, no. Not Angel. Please, not Angel, too. Please. This isn't happening, you can't do this, take me instead._

But Angel volunteered.

Misty shut off the Reapings after that, staring numbly into space from the floor in front of the television.

**. . . . .**

She never saw them live in the Capitol. But she watched everything. They were crowd-pleasers in the ceremonies, but didn't do well in training. She memorized their interviews just to be able to hear their voices….

_"Of course, I had to volunteer. Neptune and I do everything together. Even the Games." Even death._

_ "No, we're not in the Career pack. Angel and I will be just fine on our own." No, you really won't be._

Misty didn't sleep that night. Neither did the Korrall family.

**. . . . .**

They got through the bloodbath. Somehow. Thank Panem, they were _smart, _and they grabbed good supplies and ran. Misty could almost breathe. But someone hit Angel in the arm with a knife, and she, of course, couldn't take that kind of pain.

Misty tried to learn everything she could of the arena. It was a blue-tinged sparse jungle, spindly trees and vines, a lot of water, more open plains on the edge with the Cornucopia. A circle of the sea closed it all in. The setting would have made a beautiful poem.

The Korrall cousins hid and tended to Angel's stab wound.

Misty thought that they were as safe as they could be, for now—but it was a small arena, and the trees were short. She sighed.

**. . . . .**

For days, _other_ tributes fought, huge blue bird-mutts swooped down from the trees (terrifying Misty), a few of the lakes were poisoned, and the temperature skyrocketed.

Angel got worse—weak, feverish, a shell of the young, healthy, giggling girl Misty once knew. She tried to sponsor them, but the prices went up by the day, especially what Angel needed. The Capitol wanted to get rid of the "boring" Careers.

Misty wished they could see Angel and Neptune's potential. She'd never felt so helpless before. She never would again.

**. . . . .**

Angelfish Korrall died at 4:14 AM early on the fifth day of the three hundred sixty-third Hunger Games.

Misty was in too much shock to cry. And Neptune was driven out—the bird mutts chased him in a squawking, feathery flock.

_He won't make it. He doesn't want to anymore._

Misty tried to continue with her life outside of watching. It was over for them, now. How much had she really seen them? No. It didn't matter.

(But she did watch when Neptune died, going down fighting against three Careers, knives sticking out of his lifeless, emaciated body everywhere. Misty cringed. She was an only child. Neptune was the closest thing to a brother that she'd ever have.)

**. . . . .**

Neptune and Angel had taught her to care, to _live. _She never forgot them. Not Neptune's wry smile or Angel's giggle. Not how Neptune let his ice cream melt halfway before he ate it or how Angel carefully wove and braided their three friendship bracelets.

She didn't make any more close friends in the districts.

But years and tragedies and years and divorces and years and children and years later, it was still them that she called out for at night.

**END**


	2. Learn How to Assure

**Trigger Warnings: Parental Mental/Emotional Neglect/Abuse, Bullying, Mental Illness – Depression, Self-Harm**

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><p><strong>Chapter Two: Learn How to Assure<strong>

_Kaye Lina Amicus, Year 396, Capitol_

Kaye got an A on her art portfolio for first semester. She was happy—she'd agonized over it for weeks, fixing the things from early on in the year, where she was still adjusting to high school (even if not much'd changed, the private school had all grades), and it showed. She worked hard on it; it was good; she deserved that A, just like all of her others.

Clutching the book and the paper with the rubric on it against her, she all but skipped home from the bus stop. She couldn't stop smiling. She wasn't sure why—of course, she cared about the grade, yet this felt more important than that—but she was glad for something good happening. (Since she finally got to leave home to go to school—fifth grade, the beginning of middle school, there, she just hadn't… fit in. High school showed that, especially. They called her worse things every year when she'd done nothing to them, and the school transition only made that a bigger jump. But even those not involved wouldn't say anything in her favor.)

She got to her building's gate, swiped the first card on her keychain, got to the door, swiped the second, a pass code at the elevator, an actual key to the apartment door. She'd stopped noticing it, but subconsciously did think it was somewhat ridiculous. (But it helped at night; that's what mattered.)

She closed it behind her hastily, looking around one of the main rooms, calling, "Mom! Guess what? You remember the art proj—?"

"—Shush!" came the oddly-harsh answer when she finally found the office her mother was in. "I have to make a call."

"But, Mom, I got an—"

"—Whatever it is, it can wait. Stop making a racket and go entertain yourself."

"You said you wanted—"

"—It can wait. Abigail can make you a snack if you're hungry. Go on."

Suddenly heavy-hearted, looking at the ground, she mumbled an apology and shuffled out of the room. She headed downstairs, never understanding the building's layout, and found her father, as expected, in his lab. She tried to regain her earlier enthusiasm. "Hi, Dad, so today I got the art project back and—"

"Oh, I'm sorry, it's just, bad timing—can't you tell me later?"

"Well I just wanted to say that—"

"Please, can it wait till dinner?"

She sighed. "Dinner" never came. Another mumbled apology, and she went back upstairs to her room. She lets her backpack fall to the floor, tossed the folder and rubric under her bed. Thinking about it more now, maybe the project was only important to _her. _And it probably wasn't _that_ good, anyway.

**. . . . .**

"But you were so eager to find out about that grade—shouldn't you be happy?" Mr. Z asked her in first period the next morning. English. She wasn't terrible at it. She thought. (Most of the time.)

"I am," she half-mumbled, and tried to smile. If anything, she could because it was the first actual conversation she'd had in a while. Mr. Z was one of the only teachers that seemed to have noticed her problems with the other kids, tried to talk to her every once in a while, just so she could pretend that someone in school cared. (Someone _at all_, cared.) But she'd learned that at what was always the wrong moment, he could snap back into "teacher"-mode, and snap when she needed someone to talk to.

She tried to not start the conversations too often. But could she help it if she needed—?

"—Really?" he asked.

Kaye shrugged.

**. . . . .**

The rest of the day was long. In her last class that day, Gym, they started their basketball unit, so one of _those_ girls who just particularly liked to torment her kept trying to "accidentally" aim her passes too high when they were assigned as partners for practice. She succeeded once towards the end, and for a second Kaye was dizzy, numb at the impact, and stumbled a second.

She tossed it back, pretended she didn't care. She would let them have their fun, better her than someone else, and there was nothing to do about it, but….

The practicing ended. The coaches weren't pleased with the effort levels of the day. They ran back and forth across the gym a lot because of it—until Kaye was _tired_and dizzier and her head was really starting to hurt—and then the same girl managed to trip her, and she hit the ground the wrong way and went sliding across the floor. It stung, the scrapes pricking, but she forced herself back up, ran, pretending that it was just exertion, not more tears in her eyes. She got ready to go home quickly, ran for the bus, curled up in her usual spot, hid her crying in her backpack.

She got home, pretended she went to change out of her uniform as an excuse to get to close her bedroom door, just wanting to be alone, left alone for just a few seconds, _please, great Panem_, pulled her old teddy bear out from under her pillow, clutched it, the closest thing she'd gotten to a hug in a long, long time, and cried.

Her parents wanted her to get rid of the thing, it was old and dusty and tattered and _Wouldn't a new one be so much better?_ But she didn't want a new one. It would have none of the memories and none of the comfort level and they'd _just _the beginning of this past year convinced her to not carry it in her school backpack every day.

It was the closest thing to a friend she has, at this point.

**. . . . .**

Beginning of March. Almost time to start thinking about the next school year. She hated to do it; she spent all those years pleading with her parents to enroll her in an actual school, but… it had to be worth asking. Anything, had to be better than this.

She asked about going back to homeschooling. About changing schools. About trying public school. Something. _Anything._ Really. Apparently, only the first was even vaguely considered safe enough.

"But you wanted to 'actually' go to school so badly," her mother said, looking at a computer screen and not at her.

"I know," Kaye whispered. "I'm sorry. I just… I didn't know what it would be like, I really—"

"—You looked at all the flyers. We went to all the orientations. You had to know."

"I… didn't really know the people," she tried. "I just—no one likes me there—"

"—Then give them a reason to like you."

Oh. _Oh. _That… hurt. More than she would've expected it to, actually. She just kind of froze, heart stopping, numb and still and unable to process for a second. _Give them a reason to like you. _But she had—hadn't she? Every day, she'd tried, she'd done _so much_, to try and get them to… to even just hate her _less. _She'd been sweet and gentle and kind to them, and this was what she got for it. _Give them a reason to like you._

"I—I—" _can't do any more._

She whipped around, ran into her room, into the adjoining bathroom, closed the door, started to hyperventilate. What else was she supposed to _do_? What did they _want_? She just wanted—a place where—maybe—she could just have—a friend, that was all—that all she'd asked for.

She tried to take a deep breath in, and it turned into a shaky, choked exhale ending with more sobbing. (She didn't know how she hadn't run out of tears, lately.)

Clutching the bathroom counter to stay upright, head spinning with questions, she opened a drawer, then froze for a few seconds, but her hand closed around a hair clip with a rather pointy edge, ran it across her left wrist. She'd thought about doing it before, maybe it would help.

Oh, how could it make things that much worse?

**. . . . .**

It got worse.

A few people'd started to notice that she seemed worse. She got paranoid about people finding out, and because except when she was driven to it she didn't _like _doing it, she avoided people who gave her reasons to. Which seemed to be everyone. They gave her criticisms to take out on herself, and she tried to avoid them.

She wore long sleeves a lot—whenever the scars were fresh. She said she felt sick and had chills and she was just cold and she was fine.

But she got sick of telling those lies.

Finals were approaching. She knew they'd be more stressful than ever, and she would find more reasons to do _this, _than ever. She needed to stop. But every time she decided to, she lost her resolve. It helped—so why should she?

But she knew it didn't. She just couldn't make herself deal with it.

She kept thinking of telling someone. But she couldn't. If she told someone, they'd look down on her more, and then she'd have more reasons to continue. One day, after school, when she thought she was going into one of those weeks where she did it every night, she worked up all of her nerve, and went into her mom's office.

"… Mom, I… I… have something to… to tell… you… I—"

Her mom held up one hand, gesturing to wait. She typed something furiously.

After a few minutes of this, Kaye shifted from foot to foot. "Mom, it's… it's just… I… it's kind of… kind of… important—"

Clearly agitated, her mother went through some of the usual questions. _Is the house on fire? _(Well, no.) _Is anyone dying? _(Only on the inside.) _Is something broken that needs to quickly be fixed? _(No. _Me._)

By the end of the questions, she just whispered, "Sorry," and left, resolve gone. She'd looked at all the self-help websites by now. They all said, basically, to seek help from other people at this point.

None of them said what to do if they didn't listen when you asked for help.

(She assumed the unspoken answer, then, is, "Give up," and went to find something sharp.)

**. . . . .**

It was a stupid idea to look for help, anyway.

This was the only thing that made her feel better, and now she was trying to get them to take it away. Because that was just what she was used to. Maybe it was the wrong idea; maybe it was masochistic, but… everyone else said it was right.

On a more-hopeful day, a day when Mr. Z actually talked to her and she'd almost gotten the urge to maybe tell him about this—but then she realized she didn't want this news to be at school—she worked up her nerve again.

So her mom wasn't going to help. She'd try her dad.

Now, she was scared. She knew how bad things got the last time, after help didn't come once. But twice? Could she deal with that?

It took her hours, pacing in her room, to work up her nerve, stomach twisted into knots. But she couldn't find him anywhere. She asked Abigail. _He's not home. _

He. Wasn't. Home.

All this, all those nerves and trembles, and… he wasn't home. She wasn't going to maintain her resolve until he got back.

What now?

**. . . . .**

She lost all resolve to go to her parents about it. Everything she did around them was wrong.

She decided, then, that she had to go to someone at school. There was the one obvious choice, although she should've just gone to the counselor who was occasionally there. But she didn't know them, and so ignored that option.

She might as well make this as easy as she could on herself.

She got to class as early as she could, considering she took the bus. She was always early, but it was on purpose, today. "Mr. Z, can I… talk to you about… something?" she asked, trying to pretend she wasn't shaking.

"Of course," he said, swiveling his chair so he faced her. "What is it?"

That answer caught her so off-guard that she stammered around her own answer for a second. No yelling, no interruptions, no "go entertain yourself". "I—I have this… problem," she said, and knew she was being horribly vague but maybe if she stalled enough, she'd be able to get the words out by the time she got there. "I keep… I—I'm kind of… addicted, to doing this… thing, and it's bad, and… I need to stop, but I… I don't know how." She faltered. "And I need help."

Mr. Z seemed surprised. "And what exactly is this 'thing'?" he prompted, gently.

"I—well—I… I've been… I started… to… _I started cutting myself and I don't want to but I don't know how to stop and I'm scared of what'll happen if I don't and no one will listen when I try to tell them and I need help._" The end came out in a jumble, but her English teacher only nodded.

The first thing he said was, "It's going to be okay," and she felt less like she was drowning.

**. . . . .**

She talked to someone in the front office whose name she wasn't sure of, whose job she wasn't sure of, but she told the whole story, answered some questions. They had to tell her parents, they said, and Kaye nodded. She expected that much. Maybe they'd like listening to whoever this person was better than they did her.

The person called her parents. At first, the line was busy. They got through and said that they needed to have a conference straightaway, that it was a medical problem, and—no, she wasn't currently having an issue—you couldn't send your _maid_ to do it instead—no—what?

They came in eventually, and they weren't happy, to put it nicely.

Kaye was lost again.

**END**


	3. Learn How to Leave

**Trigger Warnings: Poverty, Mental Illness (Ambiguous), Large Families**

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><p><strong>Chapter Three: Learn How to Leave<strong>

_Francisco Clandestine, Year 394, District Five_

Francisco was not good with emotion.

Neither, really, was Ana Myne.

No teenagers were.

He had recently turned sixteen, so it was January. Halfway through his sophomore year of high school, and he had long since settled into his lonesome high school habits. The job that he had after school was just not long enough after the last bell for him to go home and go there, nor was it short enough for him to go straight to work.

So what he did was walk, and go the long way, through the shabby community park, where he started to learn everything about the area, doing a muscle-memory walk. And one thing he could count on was the high-pitched shriek of metal on metal coming from an old swing set that wasn't too far off the path he walked.

Not many children actually went to that park. No, it was always one girl on the swing, the other one always empty. The same girl, every day, who looked like she was from the right part of town, didn't look that much different from Francisco himself, had similar light-brown eyes, although her hair was a dark, dark chocolate-brown.

And it was always tangled and whipping around her face while she swung, in quick, almost violent movements.

Weeks after he'd started working, he'd never said anything to her, never acknowledged her, but had finally started to notice her constant presence—and made up things about her inside his head, the main thing being that perhaps she was mentally disabled and unable to act like anything but a child.

Or maybe she was just younger than she looked, although she did look quite young, short and skinny.

Then he started being able to swear that she had a twin running around in the hallways at his school, and was surprised that she was high school aged. The girl he saw at school, he found out, was a freshman, so that made some sense.

But what about the girl in the park?

One day he was walking down the dusty old path again, and couldn't help calling, "Hey! Do you go to Desert Oasis?"

The girl didn't seem to hear him, and he repeated himself. She gave him a look—not exactly a glare, although if he was in a worse mood he would've been able to call it that—just a strange one, and dragged her torn sneakers through the dust under the swing, slowing down somewhat. "Yeah," she said, quiet, and didn't quite stop swinging. She didn't say anything else.

"So do I," he said. "I just thought I saw you around there."

She shrugged, and resumed swinging. He walked on.

They didn't talk again for weeks. He kept walking past her every day, and every few days he would nod. Every few days of those days, she would notice and nod back. One time he waved, and she tried to wave back, but her balance was poor and she almost fell off the swing.

He didn't say anything.

Then they started nodding to each other in the hallway, and having someone that he felt obliged to acknowledge when he saw them felt like an almost unwelcome responsibility. Almost.

But it made his walking to work from school more enjoyable.

He didn't have many friends because he wasn't good with words, so this girl was easy to feel connected to: they didn't talk. She didn't seem to have friends, either, and looked slightly out of place when she wasn't on the old swing set.

He walked by one day and she wasn't there. He felt oddly worried, even though he didn't—wait, he didn't know her name. Great Panem, he really was bad with people. He'd never asked.

He resolved to, when he saw her again, and the next day, even though it was Saturday and his only day off from school and work, he walked through the park. He was curious if she went there on the weekends, too.

She did.

He stopped on the path and they repeated the look-and-kind-of-stop-swinging-awkward-quiet pattern. "You weren't here yesterday," he said.

She shrugged. She did that a lot.

_Well, great, _he thought. The only person who was worse at this than he was. "Why not?" he asked.

"I was sick," she said.

He nodded, and he walked away. After, he thought, _damn it. _He hadn't asked her name. And he didn't, for several days, because he felt like they couldn't talk more often than that, although that felt ridiculous.

Then he stopped one day. "Do you have a name?" _That was a stupid question. _"I mean, what _is _your name?"

"Ana," she said.

When no answering question came, he said, "I'm Francisco," and they left it at that. As he walked away, he wanted to say _nice to meet you too, _but didn't want to already start with the insulting of a person who he hadn't blocked out yet.

They continued their lives for almost two weeks, before it was a Saturday and Francisco was bored, so he found himself wandering towards the park, oddly enough seeking company. "[Do you] mind if I join you?"

"Sure."

He sat down on the other swing and didn't actually move much, just thinking. "Why are you always here?"

She took a bit of time to answer. "I like it," she said finally, indicating that that was the end of that conversation.

He had a lot more questions, but he didn't ask those, and after a while he got up and left without saying goodbye.

Winter was long that year, a cold and bitter one given the usual climate. It was odd for the desert area. But everyday she was outside. With winter, her sneakers changed into dirty gray, tattered faux-fur boots. She wore a jacket of the same color and a hat made with loose crochet stitches, fingerless gloves and a scarf that looked like the same person as the hat had made it.

But none of them were well made, and she looked chilly.

He asked about it: "Don't you ever get cold?"

Ana shrugged.

It took him a few more days to work up the nerve to ask the real question: "Do you wanna go get a hot chocolate or something?"

She said yes.

**. . . . .**

Francisco and Ana were in a café. It was the first real conversation they'd ever had; the walk there had been oddly awkward.

They both got a hot chocolate (he hadn't liked coffee for the longest time, until it was all that kept him awake as a Gamemaker). "So," he said.

Something like the beginning of a smile came over her face. "So?"

"It's cold out."

The weather. A good, natural topic, of course.

Ana shrugged.

"It's just… you like being outside, still."

"It's not that bad."

"Well, to tolerate, but I don't know why you seek it out." He didn't like the tone that had crept into his own voice. He sounded almost angry, and he didn't mean to. Just curious, and Ana was frustratingly reserved.

"I like the swing," she said simply, like a child, like it was the end of the subject.

Francisco decided that this girl had to be mentally ill somehow and yet he was on what most sane people (not that he was one, either) a date with her. "Fair enough," he said, and for a few minutes they both sipped at their drinks and didn't say anything. "Doesn't anyone care that you're never home, though?"

"I do go home," she said. "But they get it. It's just peaceful."

"More peaceful than being at home?"

"I guess."

"Why?" Great Panem, he had to prompt everything, potentially uncomfortable topics and all.

"Six younger siblings," she smiled. "Two under the age of five. The next oldest is eleven."

"Oh," he said. He tried to think of something to say to connect to that. "I have one little brother. Mahon. He's eleven, too."

"Mm." Ana was quiet a few minutes, drinking her hot chocolate, apparently fascinated by swirling it around in the styrofoam cup. "Well, the drinks here are good. I haven't come here before."

"Really?"

"No. Is that so strange?"

"I don't know. It's just one of the only places around here, really."

"I don't go to any places around here, really," she said, and he wasn't sure if the words were supposed to be mocking him in a way or not.

"I don't, either. But even I've been here." And there was that tone again. He was really getting angry with himself inside his mind, now. "Maybe we should come back some day."

She looked up at him, partially as if he'd gone out of his mind. "We should," she said, as if she doubted that he had been serious. She looked as if no one had ever proposed wanting to see her again after they had met her.

(It would take them three years to date properly, but that didn't all matter too much. It killed him to leave, especially for the Games, but Ana was never all _right_ and their relationship was too odd and it was really his only chance.)

But Francisco was different.

He always tended to be different.

_ That_ would never change.

**END**


	4. Learn How to Love

**Trigger Warnings: Violence, Night Terrors, Abusive Relationship, Alcoholism, Parental Abuse/Neglect (Physical, Emotional), Underage Forced Prostitution, Mental Illness – Depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Nervous Breakdown, Agoraphobia, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Self-Harm, Suicidal Tendencies**

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><p><strong>Chapter Four: Learn How to Love<strong>

_Clarissa "Glisten" Navdeep, Year 377, Capitol_

November 4th, Games Year 377. Claire was fine then, even almost calm in the hours after her only child was born. A girl, a bit small and pale, with, according to her birth certificate, red hair and gray eyes. Everything was fine—they could go home.

But Claire wasn't happy. _Post-partum depression, _said the doctors. A few psychotic symptoms, but nothing to worry about.

But a few months later, the breakdown came. Then, agoraphobia, paranoid schizophrenia, like none of the local doctors had ever seen before, although several disorders ran in the family. The parents couldn't really afford to keep going to them, anyway; they were never well off.

Algos, the father, was patient for a while, and then he snapped, too, and started drinking. Taking care of the unstable Claire, himself, raising a newborn baby, working multiple jobs, maintaining the house… it was too much. By the time the baby, Clarissa, was one year old, the patient side was gone, and her survival was most likely a miracle.

**. . . . .**

Glisten (well, Clarissa, then) always waited for a few minutes outside with her class when the bell rang, when everyone else's parents came to pick them up. She just watched, putting off facing home, much as the teachers tried to shoo her. It wasn't like they wanted her, either. Her grades were perfect but her attendance was awful and no one ever got attached to her.

She didn't want to go home. There was nothing there for her except for the wooden shards of a destroyed crib in her empty, drafty room on the same wooden floor. Never enough food, even if she could have gotten to it.

She watched another girl in her class run over to her father, who had a greeting smile, and squeal, "Daddy!" while the man swung her around once.

_Oh, _Glisten thought. _That looked… like fun._ She guessed. She wouldn't really know. But they were both laughing.

The teacher told her to get going, again. She looked at the ground and wrung her hands and mumbled, "Okay," and finally shuffled away from the school. She _prayedprayedprayed _that the belt tonight wouldn't be the half that had the buckle.

(But the world didn't feel like pretending to be nice to her today.)

The metal bit into her skin, and she shrieked while it ripped at her, but no one dried her tears or protected her or smiled or swung her around once.

She was seven then.

**. . . . .**

Years later, she was a few days shy of seventeen when she came home to find the house all but destroyed. Her parents had strewn furniture about like children's toys and started up a fire from the stove. There was screaming and more things being thrown so she turned and ran.

She wandered for hours, the evening cold and damp. She found herself at the always-open library, at a table in the back. At first she just sat there, numb, wondering what she was supposed to do if she was going through with this. She'd said that she was going to so many times before, but she'd never gotten far. This time felt different. She couldn't go back.

Hours after everyone else had left, she still sat there, unsure of where else to go, until everything started to hit her and she put her head down and just sobbed, enough that the head of the librarian night crew came over and set a box of tissues next to her and asked if there was anything she could do.

Glisten shook her head and didn't look up.

Dawn came, but she didn't go to school; instead, she set out across the city for the only other living family she knew of: Calandra. An orphaned cousin on her mom side, three years older, shy and kind with dark hair hiding the face so much like her little cousin's.

Glisten wasn't one for begging, but she pleaded her way into having a place to stay, and made all kinds of promises, which she eventually kept: she took on a part-time job to pay her part of the rent, and stayed out of the way, much as she was sometimes tempted to talk.

The girls had their problems. Glisten's "half" of the rent just wasn't enough even though it was all of the minimum wage, and she woke Calandra up at night with her constant night terrors from the past, screams echoing in the apartment's halls.

So she tested out of school a year early that June to get a full-time job at the same company, and left, for somewhere she could stay on her own. College would have to wait for the year.

**. . . . .**

It was so cold. Glisten was sure that she had never been so cold in her life, not even that time she got locked out of the house for the night and it had snowed. (That was her tenth birthday present, unknowingly.) It was (the _definition of_) _pouring_ rain, and she could easily wring the equivalent of a bucket of water out of her ponytail and old clothes given five minutes, soaked to the skin. She had barely slept for days, dark circles ringing her eyes, having failed to pay her rent (once again) and being on the streets (once again). It happened from time to time.

But she was okay. (She kept telling herself that.) She refused to go back to Calandra, who she had left just a few months ago.

So now she was curled up on a bench, starving, freezing, soaking wet, exhausted, sick, feeling phantom pain creep up along all of the old scars. She wept, feeling like she was still the scared little girl who had never been called anything but worthless, who had nothing but her daydreams to keep her company, who knew nothing but hurt from others.

Someone approached her. She wasn't sure exactly what happened that night. But for once she had a warm meal and a bed under a roof and dry, clean clothes.

It was a bribe, one that _he_—a pimp, she found out, working shadily through a Capitol nightclub—would never actually show her again, replaced by heated wire hangers and johns. But of course, she clung to it.

He was usually too high to notice anything else she did. As long as quotas were filled, he was "happy". So she secretly had her job, and over time, college on scholarship, an internship at the Gamemaking Center. (It was there she met Ritter—but she had many secrets from him.) She was just smart enough and just used to exhaustion enough to keep it up.

She tried to avoid recognition when that started. She changed her name. (That was when she became Glisten, a mocking of the better half of the Capitol, an irony—it wasn't like anyone in the stable knew what it was.) She dyed her hair, despite the punishment for it that came out of surprise once it was noticed. (Pink, partly also mocking, although, like the name, it stuck.)

**. . . . .**

At "some point", she graduated. She got a job as a Gamemaker, and quit her former day job. (And the night job. Suddenly one of the most powerful people in the city, there weren't so many questions as there could've been.)

Everything had changed but she felt like she still had the same old problems—the therapists called it "depression" and "post-traumatic stress disorder". She called it "I hate myself" and "I want to die", and smirked as she said, "To put it eloquently."

**END**


	5. Learn How to Trust

**Trigger Warnings: Language, Mentions of Violence, Mentions of Triggers From Chapter Four, Mental Illness – Attention Deficit Disorder, Insomnia, Nightmare Disorder, Paranoia, Phobia: Elevators**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Five: Learn How to Trust<strong>

_Ritter Allen Denken, Year 406, Capitol_

Ritter never really learned how to be happy. His Paranoia was too bad; he always feared that joy was fleeting, and he would inevitably lose anything—or anyone—that made him happy. No matter how dysfunctional most of his relationships were.

So it was no surprise that he jolted awake one night, in a cold sweat, heart pounding, breathing hard. Frantic, he looked around the dark room, feeling disoriented from the nightmare—but his eyes set on Glisten, fast asleep beside him.

Or not.

"What is it?" she mumbled, barely moving, not even half awake.

"Nothing. Go back to sleep, honey." He settled back down, curled around her protectively, kissing her temple. She quickly fell back asleep, but he lay there for hours, worrying, trying to slow his breathing and heart rate.

No, he'd never really learned how to be happy.

. . . . .

He had a vivid memory of being somewhere in his teens, after locking himself in his room, in his family's large, lavish apartment high above the Capitol. He was alone, although his parents were having a dinner party out in the main area, which his two little sisters were attending, but he was just so different from them, and even though his mother had said, _Ritter Allen Denken, you have to stay here for the whole party and TALK to PEOPLE!, _here he was. It was getting late at night.

He just lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, listening absently to all of the chatter flowing into the room from outside, unable to think of anything other than how badly he wanted to have nothing to do with it. His thoughts scattered away from forming anything too clear—damn the ADD meds—but he could think that much.

He didn't talk to his parents, or sisters, or classmates, and he didn't really have friends to speak of, and no matter what anyone said—like the teachers he was always in trouble with—that was the way that he liked it. He had very little trust in people—family ties didn't mean anything (he'd seen too many relatives in the Games together, putting knives in each other's backs—) and what were friends really so good for, anyway?

He let the words from outside wash over him and just willed them all away.

. . . . .

Ritter was still just trying to think his way out of the arena. But those thoughts were the only ones that would never leave—_mutts, mines, cannons, storms, traps—_the only clear ones left.

Now he was in his thirties, and he felt like he was too old for all of this emotion.

He was a lot of things. He was arrogant and short-tempered, not one for trust, thoughtfulness, emotion.

He had no natural skill with people, and he wasn't attractive. And that wasn't him being modest—Panem knew he wasn't. He just wasn't attractive.

He was very gangly, and he had his too-short, too-untidy hair, too-pale face with childish freckles of a dirt-brown color, a large, crooked nose, a too-small mouth, and a very spherical head.

But he was smart. No one ever denied that—but in all the ways that made him know too much, too much to have faith, too much to keep things together, too much to have conversations or to sleep.

Mostly, he just wanted to sleep.

. . . . .

One better day, he got back to his apartment on a weekend sometime before the four-hundred sixth Games, and Glisten jumped to her feet, gray eyes wide and focused on the door, heart pounding, starting to shake but trying to suppress it.

Ritter walked in, noticed her state, and quickly set the bags down and closed the door. "Hey, honey," he said, more softly than he'd talk to anyone else. "Sorry; I didn't mean to startle you." He walked over to her and she managed to not back away, but flinched instinctively when he took one of her hands in his. He still had something in the other. "I got something for you while I was out," he continued with a rare smile, and tucked the magenta colored carnation flower into her hair, the color not too far off from the long pink curls. "Just because I love you." He leaned down to kiss her. _Damn being 5'3, _she thought.

She started to get some of her breathing back. "It was just… sudden," she mumbled. "And thank you. Even though you're ridiculous."

He took a second to process what each part was responding to, then shifted to embrace her, with her head tucked under his chin, and she tried to feel his breathing and heartbeat and warmth and let it soothe her as it usually did.

"Better?" he asked.

"Better." She nodded, as much as she could.

"Good. I wouldn't want you to go all… Tarv Maig on me or anything. … Not that I couldn't take you."

"It's Krav Maga. And, right," she smirked, feeling better.

"Fine. So I don't know Krav Maga and you do. But I'm way heavier and taller than you, so whatever."

"'Whatever'," she mocked.

He kissed her hair and then let go of her. "Dare I ask what you've been up to while I was gone?" he asked.

"Just some human sacrifices."

"Who were the humans?"

"Does it matter?"

"As long as you don't get blood in the carpet, no."

"You don't care about the fucking carpet."

"Well it's probably a good thing I don't care about the fucking carpet what with you around, _darling,_" he shot back.

"I wasn't sacrificing anyone," she said, as if that needed clarification. "I don't do that shit."

"Then what shit do you do?"

"Rubik's Cube solving."

"I see," he said, as she sat and picked up the said cube.

"See?" she held it up.

He plopped himself down next to her, hand already anxiously tapping against his lap as usual. "Yeah, yeah."

"So what were you shopping for other than flowers?"

He smirked. "Working on the gallon bottled water and preserved food supply. And I was at the gym for a bit. And… that's all I remember."

"For the zombie apocalypse?"

Ritter nodded seriously. "For the zombie apocalypse."

He was honestly paranoid, but he could joke about it better than she could joke about her own issues most of the time.

"Because you just look so coordinated," she said.

He shoved her, and she shoved him back.

"I think the people at the gym were judging me."

"Everyone's always judging you."

"I was tired from not sleeping. And working out made my hair get all flat." He gestured to his short auburn hair that was, indeed, flatter than normal where it was usually spiked up.

"Boohoo."

"Neh."

"The most exercise you got was probably going up the stairs," she said.

"It's better than the elevator—"

"—It's thirteen stories up—!"

"—Better than being in a moving death machine—"

"—_I_ take it—"

"—Much as I advise you otherwise."

Glisten scowled.

"I'm telling you, Glis—"

"—The elevator's trying to kill us all?" she guessed.

His turn to scowl.

They were both quiet for a little while, not uncomfortably, Glisten automatically solving the Rubik's cube and shuffling again and again. She leant against Ritter's shoulder, and he looped an arm around her, just as usual.

"Do you care if I put the TV on?" he asked.

"As long as it's not total crap."

He hit the power button on the nearby remote with his free hand, stopping his tapping for a second. A talk-show host on his usual set appeared on the screen.

"Oh, not him again," they both said at the same time, and then smiled at each other. Ritter changed it to some documentary just for background, and reached for a tablet to read on, picking out a book on positive psychology.

He read, distractedly, and Glisten was still with the Rubik's Cube, both half-watching the documentary, occasionally saying something, both curled into each other.

These were some of their favorite days.

**END**


	6. Learn How to Surrender

**Trigger Warnings: Dysfunctional Family, Unrequited Love, Mental Illness – Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, Panic Disorder, Insomnia, Nightmare Disorder**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Six: Learn How to Surrender<strong>

_Rainshadow Mariella Delirium, Year 388, Capitol_

Rainshadow knew how to control everything but herself.

She knew how to _perfect _everything but herself.

And when things weren't perfected, she panicked. That was simple.

What wasn't simple was trying to live as an imperfect person in a world she was trying to perfect. That wasn't simple. That meant losing a lot of sleep, that meant nightmares, that meant panic attacks, that meant stress.

She didn't really eat or sleep or take breaks.

She memorized quotes that she read in a journal, because memorization was either perfect or not, and that was simple, too. She made short films, sometimes about her family.

But there were all kinds of things wrong with her family. A reclusive mother that mumbled and shuffled her feet and only looked at the ground. An introspective father often quietly lost in thought. An older brother who didn't notice that she existed. A loud, emotional aunt who had absolutely no filter. An arrogant cousin, another older boy who couldn't have cared less. An uncle in denial of all of their problems.

That was the house.

She mostly turned to the aunt, Latana. But it was hard to talk to her. Everything was about Latana. Latana had a story for every occasion, whether someone was dying or being born. She wasn't uncaring, really, she just… well, she never let you talk long enough to give her something to care about. And she couldn't talk about anything of substance with her uncle.

So there went the two sanest people in the house.

So Rainshadow would stay up all night alone locked in her room. Doing homework, filming, quote-memorizing. With the start of high school came the start of all kinds of extra-curricular activities that she signed up for. Which no one noticed. No one noticed that she was the star student, that she _was_ the film production crew of her school, that she'd learned a whole other language, none of it. None. Of. It. And she hated it. She'd taken on all the activities as a distraction from her family in the first place, and they still didn't appreciate it.

Rainshadow had no sense of what the word "busy" meant. She had no time for the word "busy", and so she didn't care what people said on it.

And on people… there were so many people in the house, she should've felt incapable of being alone.

But then she'd be the only person awake at three o'clock in the morning, pouring over books on Latin and books on computers and books on everything in between. That was when she felt the most alone, and also feeling a bit of hysteria slip into her mind—Rainshadow never knew what to do if she wasn't under a ridiculous amount of stress. Which was starting to take a toll on her.

She always had issues, she figured, really. It had taken her a while to figure all of them out, and fix figuring them out into her complicated schedules and routines and rituals. She wasn't exactly sure where her family came into all of it, but she was sure that they did somewhere. Yet exactly where, she didn't really know.

Rainshadow was never really sure of anything. She was always doubting and always wondering, and that was why she drove herself insane.

She tried to make things work out inside her head, and yet they never really did. They never really worked out for her at all no matter what.

**. . . . .**

Rainshadow fell in love twice.

Once with a boy named Livius.

At the time, he could hold a conversation and remember her name from day to day, and for Rainshadow, that was an exciting prospect. He was the closest thing she'd had to a friend. He let her talk about anything, even while she fidgeted and her words raced too fast, and he actually seemed to pay attention.

And as it turned out, he was paying attention to try to get her to go to the school psychologist. Who was bribing him into trying to get her there.

So that didn't work.

And then… there was the second time.

She fell a little bit in love with Francisco. Who fell a little bit in love with Lavender.

And Rainshadow supported him. She wanted him to be happy, more than anything, much as she teased him on it to hide everything else, and she slowly, slowly, rationalized herself out of her feelings for him, for the one person she knew who, if the building caught on fire, would probably sit there and calmly read a book until the whole ordeal was over. While Rainshadow would probably burn to death running around in a useless panic.

They would never work.

She was just a nuisance to him.

Maybe if she'd tried harder….

No. It just wasn't going to happen.

Rainshadow would sigh.

**. . . . .**

"You can enjoy someone's company when you don't expect them to be perfect."

"_Tu numquam erit felix si vestri 'quaerens perfectionem_."

"Don't mix perfection and brilliance."

Rainshadow looked at the quotes she'd written down when she was three, when she was almost thirty-three. Her notebook was really falling apart, but all the tape and glue and string in the world apparently couldn't fix that. As she couldn't fix anything. Had she known everything that would happen to her then? It almost seemed as if she had, she thought, tears coming to her eyes. She wiped them away, not wanting to get them on the old paper, on the faded ink, on her slightly sloppier handwriting and poorer Latin from that age.

Then again, she hadn't been a normal three-year-old, either.

She should've typed up the quotes.

But there was something sentimental in the book. The quotes had been there when she needed them, when she needed something simple that she could deal with. The book had been there through long nights and panic and bad relationships.

And it was one imperfect thing she just couldn't stand to get rid of.

She was looking at it after editing the footage of the bloodbath of the 406th Games. That was her passion. That was what she was meant for. Being a Gamemaker was the only job that was high-pressure enough that she could be happy at it. But of course, none of them were really happy—but for once, she'd found people that could talk about it.

But then, of course, it activated her perfectionism. But then it had a use. She had something to do. She didn't have to just bottle it up, although there was always some left over.

And the others, her first real friends…_ got_ it. And maybe that was what she'd needed all along. Maybe she'd just needed to be able to get it out.

Being a Gamemaker gave her a reason. A reason to want to perfect things. A reason to have nightmares and not sleep and panic. It gave her a world where all of that was normal. And since none of those things were going away, maybe she just needed to be able to live in that little, safe, understanding world.

She had Thespian and Misty as the people she was closest to from the start. Then came Francisco. He became the closest, and stayed that way. And then there was Kaye, who she grew close to, and Lavender, who she felt similar to even if they didn't talk as much.

Rainshadow would never learn how to control everything. But she could control her own little corner of the universe, and that was okay. Her world would always end up okay.

**END**


	7. Learn How to Connect

**Trigger Warnings: Alcoholism, Swearing/Slurs, Obesity, Diabetes, LGBT Character, Homophobia, Parental Favoritism, Bullying, Insomnia, Nightmare Disorder**

**Chapter Seven: Learn How to Connect**

_Thespian Faine Albright, Year 384, Capitol_

When Thespian was fourteen, Laya was born. There was a large age difference between them but Thespian loved his baby sister from the moment she reached out with tiny fingers to grab one of his. And Mom and Dad cooed over their little angel.

Of course, they spent a lot of time with the baby. The baby needed them. The baby had huge gray eyes and was small and cute even though she looked so _serious_ all the time. And his Mom had always wanted a girl.

But then Laya started to grow up. She learned to walk and talk and read and write and count. And she was still so serious. And she still had those big gray eyes. And Mom and Dad still spent all of their time with Laya.

Thespian had read about what happened when your adoptive parents had a new baby. They would spend a lot of time with the baby, said the articles. But they still do love _you._

And for his Dad, that started to be true. Outside of Laya's extra needs for help, he spent equal time with her and with Thespian. He and Thespian talked about comic books and movies and all of the things that they always had, but Mom heard none of it. Mom was with Laya. Laya was obviously Mom's _favorite_, and Mom cried when Laya started pre-school.

Thespian hadn't gone to pre-school.

But Thespian, too, spent a lot of time with Laya. He helped her learn all of the things she did. He sang to her, he read to her, he talked to her, he played with her. He still loved his baby sister. He had learnt that. Every big brother loves their little sister. Period. And he did.

And….

Every parent loves their child.

And his did. His dad, did. But Mom was slipping away, and none too subtly.

**. . . . .**

He came out his senior year of high school.

Everyone already knew he was gay.

But now they had a chance.

They made the rest of his senior year _miserable._

Thespian was never afraid of them, physically. He could've taken on any of them, although he _wouldn't_, because Thespian wasn't violent. So that wasn't the issue. But some of the things they said _got_ to him. Not about him. But about "his kind" in general. Did they really think any gay person was like that? These kids had known him for years, and they could completely reverse their opinions of him over one little thing?

Well, it was senior year. Soon, he'd escape a lot of them.

_Faggot, queer, homo._

They didn't stop.

And it bugged him. It really, really did.

**. . . . .**

He became a Gamemaker at the age of twenty-four. He started to drink three months later. He couldn't handle the constant pressure, the constant attention, the long hours, the not leaving the Gamemaking Center, the not talking to anyone but the Gamemakers, the constant work, the cruelty of their jobs. You had to figure out how to make people get attached to twenty-three kids, even get a bit attached to and interested in them, yourself, and then kill them as horribly as possible.

All for the ratings.

So he drank.

And he started to gain weight.

Thespian had never really been thin. No, that was Laya. And that was another thing he kept getting called out on. But now he was getting really heavy. It wasn't healthy.

And the current Head Gamemaker at the time, Lucius Cromwell, was a douche. That was how most people put it. Thespian, sober, called him a bit uptight. Thespian, drunk, called him a rather long list of things.

And Cromwell, being a douche, told Thespian, "Get your fat ass to the doctor before I have to deal with you dying or something."

Thespian did go to the doctor. And through a lot of tests, he found out he was diabetic. If he didn't stop drinking, he'd be in real trouble. He needed insulin. He needed to eat better. He needed to exercise, but like hell _that_ was gonna happen.

But Thespian did everything else. He managed to completely quit drinking, instead throwing himself into his work, and talking to Misty, who helped everyone deal with Cromwell, really. He took the insulin exactly how it was suggested. He improved his diet tremendously.

And he felt better, physically. But not mentally.

**. . . . .**

Thespian, like all of the Gamemakers, eventually developed two work related illnesses: insomnia, and nightmare disorder.

Thespian was a naturally happy person. He was the class clown. He knew how to talk to people, to make them smile, to make them laugh, to make them happy. He told his long anecdotes that didn't make sense, and compared people to various specific recent tributes, and gave people nicknames. He was naturally outgoing, naturally light-hearted. Naturally supposed to be likable.

It was Thespian who would one day dub Lavender "Lav", and who would start a running gag about not swearing in front of Kaye, and call Glisten and Ritter "Glitter", and tell his sister, an intern, to attempt ridiculous things for "research".

Thespian couldn't hurt a fly, but he killed twenty-three children every year, and he announced every single death. Just like he was supposed to.

Just like he'd at some point wanted to.

**. . . . .**

"I think I'm _too_ different," he told Rainshadow one day. Rainshadow had been hired for the three-hundred ninety-eighth Games, years later than Thespian, three years after Misty became Head Gamemaker, to everyone's relief, but she was the second-most talkative person on the panel other than him, so they took to each other well.

"You can never be _too _different," she said, too fast, twirling around an AT stylus.

"_I_ can," he said. "I'm still fat and diabetic and gay and an insomniac and a recovering alcoholic and I still have nightmares."

"So?" asked Rainshadow. "We're all weird—so what?"

Rainshadow had taken to being a Gamemaker much better than Thespian had. "I don't know," he said. He felt too serious today. It was very unlike him. "Maybe I should watch some more musicals," he tried to joke.

Rainshadow just raised a blue eyebrow at him.

"Too prejudiced?" he asked, because he did watch _some _lines.

"It's against yourself, so I don't know," she said.

Thespian thought that he would never be his mom's favorite and there would always be people who didn't like him. He had to accept that. But he had a hard time with it then. "Well, I'll just go get a _fabulous _scarf and grow my hair out so I can do hair flips and snap whenever someone says something sassy."

"Now you're pushing it," she said, and kicked him from where they both sat in roll-y chairs. And so began one of Thespian's favorite games of roll-y chairs bumper cars. When it faded out, Rainshadow continued, "So you still think you're too different?"

"I think," he started slowly, stroking an imaginary beard, "that I still want to be able to drink." Thespian always did try to joke about things. Some people took it the wrong way. But Rainshadow knew him.

"Shut up," she said, and kicked him again.

"Stop that, you're gonna break my leg," he mock-whined.

"Well, you were just complaining that you were fat a minute ago, so it shouldn't hurt," she protested.

He kicked her back. "Well, did that hurt?"

"No, because I need to lose weight, too."

And it wasn't funny, but they both started laughing.

Nothing was really funny anymore, so they had to make everything funny on their own.

That was just another one of the Games they played.

**END**


	8. Learn How to Lead

**Trigger Warnings: Self-Confidence Issues, Grade-Skipping Gone Wrong, Bullying, Mental Health Treatment, Mental Illness – Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, Social Anxiety, Insomnia, Nightmare Disorder**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Eight: Learn How to Lead<strong>

_Lavender Juliet Maynor "Flame", Year 404, Capitol_

On her first night as a Gamemaker, Lavender looked out on the lights of the city from a glass wall high above it all. She was alone, and she brushed her fingertips against the cool, smooth glass. She was eighteen, the youngest and least-experienced of the panel, and yet she was Head Gamemaker. It was long after everyone else had left, and she was alone in the huge Gamemaking Center, alone in a big city at night. She looked out, wide-eyed, expression curious, seeing her reflection in the glass, and whispered, "I'm Head Gamemaker."

. . . . .

On her first day of therapy, she wore her favorite gray shirtdress over leggings in the same color.

It was all a long process. Therapy every week, constantly switching therapists because most of them turned out to be crazier than they thought she was. Trying different medications, none of which seemed to work, with psychiatrists that also got stranger and stranger. The "lifestyle changes" that she mostly rejected as being only nuisances.

They came up with various diagnoses, a list of the most confirmed. Generalized anxiety disorder, a given, and panic disorder to go with it. Social anxiety. Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Insomnia due to all the anxiety.

Once she became a Gamemaker, they added nightmare disorder.

Because that was always fun.

. . . . .

On her first day back at work after the break the Gamemakers got after each Victory Tour, she talked to Misty.

"Sometimes I just think that I don't have any use other than for the arena," Lavender said quietly. "That I can't be anything other than Head Gamemaker."

They were sitting on the couch in Misty's office on the Gamemaking Center's third floor, towards the end of the workday, almost three o'clock. Lavender wasn't even sure how or why they'd gotten to talking.

"That's not true, dearie. You have your whole life ahead of you."

"And what could I ever do that could compare to this?"

Lavender, sitting right next to Misty, leant her head on her shoulder. Misty kissed her forehead, stroked her hair with one hand, held both of Lavender's with the other. "I don't know," Misty said, quiet, gentle.

"Exactly," sighed Lavender. "I mean… I'd go insane doing anything else, but… _this _is complicated."

"Yes," Misty agreed, "but you seem to handle it."

Lavender shook her head, as much as she could. "I mean, how am I supposed to lead anyone else if I can't even keep _myself_ together?"

"You do keep yourself together."

"Hardly," whispered Lavender.

"I don't know what I could say to change your mind, dear," said Misty. "You should know what everyone else thinks of you. Kaye and Thespian love you like a sister. Rainshadow is very loyal to you. Francisco's fond of you in his own way. Even Glisten and Ritter care for you a great deal. I believe that if anything ever happened, any of them would die for you, just as you would for them."

"I would," Lavender agreed softly. "But who else would? None of us have any other friends. Isn't there something wrong with that?"

"Maybe," Misty said. "But what can we do about it?"

"I don't know. But we _should _be able to do _something_. I wish we could."

"If wishes were fishes, all of us would cast nets in to the sea," said Misty vaguely.

Lavender sighed. "I wish I could help the others with things like that but I just _can't,_" she said. "Like I said, I can't create anything other than death."

Misty looked at her. "Now, you listen to me," she said. "You possess purpose and _worth, _apart from the Games. We respect and appreciate and_ love_ you, not just as our leader, but also as a person." Misty paused. "All right?"

"All right," Lavender whispered, finally giving in, and nestled her head further into Misty's shoulder.

. . . . .

On her first DAPT meeting after that, there was again an odd feeling of peace in it. In the silence other than the Gamemakers' voices, with only the dim blue light in the hallway, and it being dark outside, the lights in the conference room left off along with the presentation screen and the table screens' brightness turned up to compensate, it had an almost sleepy atmosphere.

"Any ideas?" Lavender asked through a yawn towards the beginning of the meeting. They were all falling asleep, really, even though it was only seven. Work was really in full swing. Kaye leant sleepily on Lavender's shoulder, Glisten on Ritter's. None of them seemed well. None were particularly well groomed, several in a bad rendition of pajamas, all looked slightly pale, bloodshot eyes ringed with circles.

"Yes, I have a whole store of arena ideas that I just haven't decided to share with you," Ritter snapped.

"Shut up," groaned Glisten, nudging him as much as she could from her position. "You're talking too loud."

"Both of you shut up," drawled Francisco.

Rainshadow, as if trying to silently agree, threw a stylus in their direction, trying to drink some more coffee.

"People," Misty said sternly.

"Ulgh," groaned Lavender, and closed her eyes for a second. Kaye seemed to have started to accidentally drift off against her shoulder, and Lavender too nudged her.

"What?" she blurted blearily, looking up, eyes going from side to side. "Oh. Sorry." She yawned, though, and leant back against Lavender's shoulder, already seeming to be falling back asleep.

"Stop yawning, you're making me yawn," yawned Thespian, rubbing his face, and finally resting his chin in his hand tiredly.

Francisco leant his head down on folded arms, facing the head of the table, Lavender.

"What about the tree idea that we scrapped?" Ritter, too, yawned. "Could we do something with those?"

"Why not?" asked Lavender, eyes starting to flutter shut. She jerked back awake when her head started to fall and said, "Trees. Scrapped. Right. Yes. What?"

"Just make it in the arena," said Rainshadow. "Put all of the sections in a row and call it an arena feature." She took a few more gulps of coffee.

"Great idea," mumbled Lavender with no enthusiasm, fumbling for a stylus to write it down with. She finally got some badly spelled rendition of the idea down.

There was silence for a few minutes in which most of them seemed to start to drift off. Rainshadow woke with a yelp when she fell forwards too much and her chair went out from under her, crashing into the wall, waking most of the others who had started to drift, too. She got back into her chair.

Thespian yawned loudly, stretching and almost hitting both Misty and Lavender in the process. "Can we just have nap time now?" he asked.

"Sure… why… why… not?" Lavender murmured, head tilting down.

"That's the best idea we've had," said Misty tiredly.

"Just… keep… eyes… open," Ritter was trying to say, words slurring with being half asleep.

"I hate you all," said Francisco, turning to just have his head on the table.

"Take more happy pills, then," said Lavender.

"I'm out of happy pills."

There was more quiet with just yawns and people kicking each other to stay awake.

"Let's just sleep," said Lavender, and stumbled to her feet, tripping over a chair leg instantly, and accidentally displacing Kaye, who snapped awake from it.

But as everyone stood, somehow, maybe with everyone just sleepily reaching out to each other for support, the Circle started nearer the doors, everyone holding hands in the titular shape. Maybe it was just one of those bad times when Lavender needed to start it.

She talked rather briefly about people trying to take care of themselves between working. Namely sleeping.

And then it broke off, and they all sleepily headed upstairs to sleep… although some of them didn't quite make it that far.

"Some".

Lavender, for one, didn't.

**END**


End file.
